Grief, Graduation and Going Forward

There’s been a bit of a gap in my blogging.

The event which we had predicted since diagnosis for 2 years ago has happened.

My Mother passed into somewhere peaceful on 24 February 2011.

As with so many sufferers, it was not her Motor Neuron Disease which actually killed her. It was an inter-cranial bleed following a fall in the kitchen.

She was with her GP at the time and so was in hospital quickly and through a drug-induced coma was in no pain.

She did not have to suffer a further loss of independence. She had fought this disease so hard that she ended with the dignity and elegance we would expect.

That said, it leaves a massive hole in our lives. In some senses it has not really sunk in. I still wander around and see her in the flowers or the sunshine, think of news to tell her or make her laugh. That will change as we find the ‘new normality’ without her.


Just 6 days after her passing I was due to graduate from my post-graduate diploma in social research methods. After a brief discussion, it was decided we would keep the date and we were right to. She was there in spirit and left me a card ‘just in case’. She was proud of what I had done. So we celebrated that day for her and the sun shone on one of those days were the warmth & hope of spring is just starting to show which my mother would have loved.


At the same time as leaving me a card for the post-graduate diploma, Mother has left me a card for the day when I get my PhD. So, in the short to medium term that has to be my focus. The idea of Dr. Grinbergs is fulfilling so much that my mother would have wanted and so much that my mother had encouraged me out. So I’m in the process of investigating a new supervisor, either at Roehampton or at the Institute of Education as this is becoming a bit of a block and not developing me or my research in the way I would like.
So, for my career, my research, my life and, despite the grief, for my mother – it’s time to go forward and get this done.